Wednesday, November 07, 2012

North Carolina Ain't the Nation

If current leads hold in still undecided Congressional races across the nation, the Democrats will see a net gain of eight seats in the U.S. House.

But it was in the Senate that the Democrats really kicked it. Republicans lost three Senate seats (so far) that they were supposed to win. Two seats still to be decided, but Dems are leading in both Montana and South Dakota.

While Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner managed a little conciliatory rhetoric last night, aimed in the general direction of the reelected president, Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader in the Senate decided to take a more dickish route in what he said: “The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president’s first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control." That's both a comma splice and a wordy way of saying, "Eat dirt and die, Mr. President."

Meanwhile, the evolving of the electorate on the issue of civil rights for gays continued apace: The Three Ms -- Maryland, Maine, Minnesota -- all of them exhibited remarkable inclusiveness last night. Maine and Maryland both approved gay marriage, and Minnesota turned down their own version of North Carolina's Amendment One, refusing to define marriage as exclusionary. Plus Washington state seems to have passed Referendum 74, which will legalize gay marriage. Wisconsin elected the first openly gay candidate to the U.S. Senate in Tammy Baldwin.

A lot of dust has to settle before a complete assessment of Citizens United can take shape, but on the face of it, conservative groups -- fueled by huge donations from corporations and billionaires -- spent at least $700 million to defeat President Obama. Bottomline might be this: You can't buy a different electorate, or a better candidate, no matter how much money you spend.

Speaking of the deep obsessions with Obama among the deep pockets, you can watch Karl Rove feverishly arguing with Chris Wallace on Fox News last night after the network called Ohio for Obama. The Dark Lord of Dark Money was not a happy camper.

Finally, the "youth vote" did not evaporate. It only concentrated itself.

about

J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.

The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.